Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
In view of environmental concerns, alternatives to vehicles that use standard internal combustion (IC) engines include electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, and micro hybrid vehicles. Conventional electric and hybrid electric vehicles have been found to be limited by their electric energy systems that supply power to their electric motor/generator and vehicle accessories. Typically, an electric motor is powered by an energy source that needs to store energy suitable for high-power discharges as well as for electric demands generated by various driving conditions.
In addition to environmental concerns, the need for increased fuel economy, increased electrical loads and better energy management has driven major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to consider start stop functions with regeneration functionalities in their vehicles. The start stop function could reduce the fuel consumption during stops while braking energy recuperation provides extra fuel economy benefit. To fully utilize the regeneration electric energy, currently lead acid batteries do not provide enough charge acceptance for the start stop application.
The micro hybrid vehicles promise to be more fuel efficient than gasoline-run, electric, and hybrid vehicles. Micro hybrids or stop-start cars are so named because their combustion engines are turned off when the cars stop, say, at an intersection when the light turns red. They rely on batteries to keep the accessories, such as air conditioning, radio and other electronics, running during the stop as well as to kick-start the engines after the light turns green.
Therefore, it is desirable to equip micro hybrid vehicles with energy storage systems having improved charge acceptance.